‘Can anything perk up Europe?’ That headline on the cover of a recent issue of The Economist received ‘an unfashionably optimistic answer’ from its thoughtful leading article inside. ‘Yes: the European Union will thrive if its leaders seize the moment in the same way they did 20 years ago…There is nothing ordained about Europe’s failure. Indeed, if EU leaders show a little courage, this crisis offers the best chance at revival since the 1980s’. Yet, it continues that ‘the single market remains half built’ and quotes Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, in 2007: ‘We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it’.
Are opera companies likewise too timid? Or does it take a really serious financial crisis to embolden them? Nikos Mourkogiannis, recently appointed Chairman and Managing Director of Greek National Opera, has embarked on a radical restructuring programme which is regarded as emblematic in his country. At its autumn conference in Munich, Opera Europa will explore this and other examples of how opera might develop in the future.
Nicholas Payne
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